Stop Online Piracy Act
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| Long title | "To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes." —H.R. 3261 |
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| Acronyms (colloquial) | SOPA |
| Nicknames | House Bill 3261 |
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The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a controversial United States bill introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Provisions included the requesting of court orders to bar advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, and web search engines from linking to the websites, and court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to the websites. The proposed law would have expanded existing criminal laws to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content, imposing a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Proponents of the legislation said it would protect the intellectual-property market and corresponding industry, jobs and revenue, and was necessary to bolster enforcement of copyright laws, especially against foreign-owned and operated websites. Claiming flaws in present laws that do not cover foreign-owned and operated websites, and citing examples of active promotion of rogue websites by U.S. search engines, proponents asserted that stronger enforcement tools were needed. The bill received strong, bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and the Senate. It also received support from the following organizations: Fraternal Order of Police, the National Governors Association, The National Conference of Legislatures, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, The National Association of Attorneys General, the Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau, the AFL–CIO and 22 trade unions, the National Consumers League, and over a hundred associations representing industries throughout the economy which claim that they are being harmed by online piracy.
Opponents claimed that the proposed legislation threatened free speech and innovation, and enabled law enforcement to block access to entire Internet domains due to infringing content posted on a single blog or webpage. They also claimed that SOPA would bypass the "safe harbor" protections from liability presently afforded to websites by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Some library associations also claimed that the legislation's emphasis on stronger copyright enforcement would expose libraries to prosecution. Other opponents claimed that requiring search engines to delete domain names violated the First Amendment and could begin a worldwide arms race of unprecedented Internet censorship.
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